Proposal similar to measure rejected by voters in 2011

It's similar to a proposal that 58 percent of voters rejected in November 2011.

Personhood Mississippi filed paperwork Tuesday with the secretary of state's office, saying it intends to launch a new initiative.

The new measure says: "The right to life begins at conception. All human beings at every stage of development are unique, created in the image of God and shall enjoy the inalienable right to life as persons under the law."

"Life begins at conception," said the initiative's sponsor, Anne Reed, who had an abortion at 17. "I wonder how things would have been different had someone been outside that abortion clinic that day, confronting me with the ugly truth."

"I say that we should have more faith in Mississippians and Mississippi voters," said Felicia Brown-Williams of Planned Parenthood Southeast. "The voters were very much not confused on this issue."

After a ballot title and summary are prepared by the attorney general's office, the initiative's sponsors would have one year to gather at least 107,216 signatures to get the measure on the ballot. That means the earliest likely date for a vote would be in November 2015, coinciding with the next governor's election.

A group called Parents Against Personhood said defining life as beginning at fertilization could block in vitro fertilization by granting legal rights to embryos.

Les Riely of Personhood Mississippi said the goal is to end abortions in Mississippi like the ones performed at a clinic in Jackson. He said it would not ban in vitro ferilization, birth control or put doctors at risk of prosecution.

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